Verwoest Emma Spreckels Building na de aarbeving in San Francisco 1906

This photograph by Tom Phillips captures the devastation of the Emma Spreckels Building after the San Francisco earthquake. It’s not paint on canvas, but you can imagine what it must have been like to be there. The building stands charred and exposed, almost ghostly against the sky. I wonder, what was Phillips thinking, feeling, as he framed this shot? Was he trying to capture the raw emotion, the destruction, or just document what happened for historical record? The light and shadow play across the rubble in stark contrast, almost like brushstrokes. I can imagine him carefully selecting the angle, deciding what to include and exclude. The image reminds me of Goya's disaster prints. It makes you feel the fragility of human structures against the forces of nature. We can imagine the before and after, the lives affected, the buildings gone. All artists are in conversation through time, echoing each other, reinventing each other.